Re: [matplotlib-devel] unused variables

[Joe K. <jki...@ge...>]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Skip Montanaro <sk...@po...> wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Nelle Varoquaux
> <nel...@gm...> wrote:
> > The convention is to use a simple _.
> >
> >  mode, _, dev, nlink, uid, gid, size, _, _, _ = os.stat("/etc/hosts")
>
> Which is "pylint-compliant", but removes any description to future
> readers (who might decide to use them) what the meaning of those
> various unused values are.
>

Just to bikeshed a bit: There are common cases where a bare "_" really is a
good solution. E.g.

something = [object() for _ in range(10)]

It's immediately clear a) what "_" is, and b) that it's unused.  "for _i in
range(10)" is more jarring in that particular case, i.m.h.o.

I do agree that "_descriptive_name" is better in many situations.

I'd just argue for a "prefer this, but use your best judgement" type
guideline rather than a strict rule.

Then again, I'm not actively involved in development, so I probably
shouldn't hold too much of an opinion either way.
Cheers,
-Joe